Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been promised unlimited financial assistance by the Obama administration Thursday, exceeding the $400-billion cap on emergency funding, without obtaining permission from the Congress.

The Treasury Department’s announcement on Christmas Eve means, the mortgage firms seized last year, will continue to run as arms of the government for the rest of Barack Obama’s current term of presidency.

However, despite the administration’s open-ended financial commitment, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s federal regulator approved their payment of Wall Street-style compensation packages of $42-million for 2009 to twelve of its top executives.

In addition to these compensation packages, each Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Chief Executive will be receiving up to $6-million, amidst the ongoing public debate on banks and financial firms’ that received taxpayer aid doling out lavish payments to their executives.

While, many Wall Street firms have repaid any assistance they may have received, it is unlikely Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who together have already received $111-billion in assistance on top of the current aid amount, will follow their example.

The only way for the government can maintain power over the housing market is by keeping both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, central role players in the administration policies for keeping mortgage interest rates low, restructuring unaffordable mortgages, preventing foreclosures and funnelling money for housing programmes countrywide, solvent.

Firms taken over by the Bush administration when the financial crisis entered its severest phase in September 2008 were promised $200-billion for maintaining solvency, a figure doubled by the Obama administration later.

The estimated cost of bailouts at $171-billion is expected to rise further, depending on how aggressively the administration uses the firms for stimulating the housing market.